ANALYSIS OF ONLINE PRODUCT RETURN BEHAVIOUR OF

INDIAN CONSUMERS: A STUDY IN DELHI NCR

Ashish Awasthi
IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad
ashish.awasthi@imsec.ac.in
 Introduction
• Indian e-commerce sector has opened
business avenues beyond our imagination.
• With an annual growth rate of 28%, Indian e-
commerce space is in a rapidly expanding yet
mature and healthy phase.
• The e-commerce space has become really
complex with tremendous amount of orders
being processed daily.
 Introduction
• Lenient return policies have fuelled unnecessary
ordering and increasing return rates. This has
implications both for the behaviour of
consumers as well as the online companies.
• Reverse logistics is happening at an ever
increasing rate. Companies have included free
returns as a part of their overall service offering.
• The aim of this study is to analyze the product
return behaviour of the online shoppers.
An important Question
Return Behaviour
Study Framework
 Methodology
• 200 respondents were approached for the study. A
structured questionnaire was used for seeking
response.
• Out of 200 respondents approached, a total of 153
respondents returned complete questionnaires, 38
were weeded out due to lack of experience of
online shopping (and thus returns).
• 9 responses obtained were incomplete, thus were
not used in the study.
 Methodology
• Structured Questionnaire:
• PART 1 – respondent’s profile
• PART 2 – Questions regarding online shopping
behaviour
• PART 3 – Questions regarding Online returning
behaviour and consumer’s characteristic
 RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS
Characteristic / Score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Variety seeking Purchase behaviour 2 11 6 13 24 31 28 25 8 5

Desire for uniqueness in buying 3 13 11 18 22 20 37 9 11 9

Variety Seeking Uniqueness

40
35
35
30
30
25
25
20 No of respondents No of respondents
20
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 Conclusion

S. No. Characteristics Average Score

1 Variety seeking purchase behaviour 6.00

2 Desire for uniqueness in buying 5.78

 Conclusion
• The characteristic of variety seeking purchase behaviour has an average score of
6.00, 97 out of 153 respondents (more than 50% respondents) have given
themselves a score of more than 5 on this variable.
• As most of the correspondents who have given themselves a score of more than
5 on ‘variety seeking’ variable have also rated that the returns made by them are
‘unplanned’, we conclude that consumers with variety seeking purchase
behaviour tend to make unintentional returns or genuine returns.
• The characteristic of uniqueness seeking purchase behaviour has an average
score of 5.78; 86 out of 153 respondents (more than 50% respondents) have
given themselves a score of more than 5 on this variable.
• As most of the correspondents who have given themselves a score of more than
5 on ‘uniqueness seeking’ variable have also rated that the returns made by
them are ‘unplanned’, we conclude that consumers with uniqueness seeking
purchase behaviour tend to make unintentional returns or genuine returns.
 References
• Campbell, Colin, “The customer is NOT always right? Marketing orientations in a
dynamic business World”, 2011
• Rosenbaum, M. S. and R. Kuntze, “The relationship between anomie and unethical
retail disposition,” Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 20, No. 12:1067-1093, 2003.
• Rudolph, S., "E-commerce product return statistics and trends," Business to
Community, April 10, 2016.
• Saastamoinen, J. “Returns on reputation in retail e-commerce,” Journal of
Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 10, No. 4:196-219, 2009.
• https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-returns
• https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/e-tailers-plug-holes-in-return-policy-to-
keep-abuse-in-check/70017/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendennis/2018/02/14/the-ticking-time-bomb-
of-e-commerce-returns/#643237704c7f
• https://www.ajio.com/return-refund-policy